MWC 2018: Lenovo Yoga 730 and 530 launched with built-in Amazon Alexa

Lenovo is the biggest laptop manufacturer according to unit shipments since 2013. They do make pretty compelling laptops, with the best of all, the Yoga series. At MWC 2018, they have launched two new Yoga laptops namely the Yoga 730 and 530.

Lenovo Yoga 730

The Yoga 730 is available in either a 13″ or a 15″ variant. They come with either a Full HD or an Ultra HD (4K) IPS panel with a maximum brightness of around 300 nits. Lenovo didn’t reveal any color coverage numbers, but it’s up there with the best. Also, these laptops are touch and feature 360-degree hinges.

Both the laptops come with 8th gen intel core i5 or i7 processors. The laptops are available with up to 16GB of DDR4 RAM alongside up to 1TB of flash storage on the 15″ laptop. The 13″ however only gets a maximum of 500GB of flash storage.

On the graphics front, the smaller 13″ gets an Intel 620 graphics card. The bigger one, however, gets up to a Nvidia GTX 1050 graphics card, which is optional. Thanks to the same GTX 1050, the 15″ model is a bit thicker and understandably heavier.

The Yoga 730 features a premium all-aluminum design, just like the 720 but a bit better. The top edge is slanted rather than flat, which Lenovo says helps with one hand usage. The 13″ weights in at 1.12kgs whereas the 15″ come out a bit heavy at 1.89kgs.

Lenovo claims a battery life of 11.5 hours for the 13″ and 11 hours for the 15″. These numbers are for the FHD based displays. The battery life with the UHD display comes out at 9 hours. These laptops also feature rapid charging which provides 2 hours of usage with just 15 mins of charging.

The bigger variant is packed with two full-sized USB A, HDMI, USB C, charging port and a headphone jack. The smaller variant gets a pair of USB C, headphone jack and a full-sized USB A port. The smaller one also uses a USB C to charge whereas the bigger one employs a Lenovo proprietary port for charging.

Both the laptops come with Amazon Alexa built-in, aided by four microphones. The microphone helps with better voice commands even in a fully crowded noisy room. Expanding on the design a bit, the laptop features a very minimal bezel display. Just like on the XPS lineup, but with the webcam on top.

The laptop supports a stylus, and those willing to use one will need to buy the Lenovo’s active Pen 2 separately. The Pen 2 comes with 4096 levels of sensitivity and is priced at $69.99. The laptops also come with Windows 10 and Windows Hello fingerprint reader.

The laptops will go on sale starting April this year, although exact dates are yet to be announced. Pricing starts at $879 for the 13″ and $899 for the 15″ variant and will exponentially rise if you decide to go for dedicated graphics options.

Lenovo Yoga 530 (Flex 14)

The Lenovo Yoga 530, also known as Flex 14 in the US is the affordable one among the two. It’s only available in 14″ variant, with a plastic build and the same 360 degrees and stylus support perfect for students. It also weighs in at just 1.6Kgs so portability won’t be an issue either.

The Flex does come with 8th Gen Intel processors, with up to 16GB of RAM and 512GB of SSD. It does lack Alexa and the display caps out at FHD, with about 60-70% of color coverage. With the low res display, Lenovo claims about 10 hours of battery life.

On the graphical side, you can bump up to an MX150 dedicated graphics card with 4GB of DDR5 memory. Port-wise it features both USB A and a USB Type C alongside a full-size HDMI port. The laptop will go on sale sometime in the middle of April with a starting price of $549.